Chapter 6 Political tensions

Chapter 6 Political tensions

Princess Celestia arose.

“And you are sure you are willing to stay with this version?” she asked insistently.

Her conversation partner was nothing more than a small, dripping ice crystal hovering at eye level. It started to oscillate the air molecules to create sound waves.

These sound waves resulted in an answer like from a little loudspeaker, “There were activities at the border but there is no confirmation that a behemoth has crossed it.”

The message, the piece of ice had transmitted as a communicator, came from a being beyond Equestria, from the depths of the eastern sea. A barely tangible being going by the name Sekai. Old like the world, quiet like the void and cold-hearted like a sliver of steel. The leviathans called her empress although she hardly ever uttered a sound and even in Canterlot Castle she had fallen into oblivion. Just like the wastelands of Ödland.

But now both of these relics had reappeared in a big way.

“You call this activities at the border?” Celestia dug deeper. “The newspapers of Baltimare are full of reports about the incidents at Mt. Ziz in the south. The chaotic lights were visible until Manehattan. Rampant speculations and conspiracy theories are going around. Why now, of all times?”

“The primal chaos has always acted unpredictably, my dearest,” answered Sekai, no emotion in her voice. “As long as it is only a bunch of lights there is no reason to worry. If there was a behemoth coming to Equestria the newspapers would have been filled with some other kind of stuff.”

“About these lights,” interrupted Celestia. Sekai´s distasteful sarcasm almost made her lose her poise. “Was it the wings of primal chaos or not, empress?”

Sekai hesitated one moment while Celestia awaited the answer.

“There is evidence to confirm this, princess,” the ice crystal finally uttered.

Princess Celestia closed her eyes and sighed silently. That didn´t sound good.

“Well then. If there isn´t any more information from your side, I still have other matters to settle,” she took leave of the leviathan leader.

Sekai didn´t utter any word of goodbye. The hovering ice crystal simply melted within seconds and left only a puddle on the carpet of the conference hall of Canterlot Castle.

Thereupon the princess left the room for she had to attend to her other duties. Her unique poker face hid her worries.

Over millennia the behemoths hadn´t shown themselves, their existence had gone into the realm of tales by now. And now there was this incident. As if there weren´t enough troubles since the last invasion of the capital city a few days ago.

It couldn´t be helped. The first priority right now was the search for other changelings which could have undercut the society of Equestria. The happenings on Mt. Ziz had to wait for now.

Sekai was angry. Their river guardians on Mt. Ziz had failed. She turned around and marched with her head held high through the corridor of her palace.

She truthfully was an entity you rather didn´t want to talk with face to face. In fact you couldn´t even see her. Her shape was not visible. Every of her snow-white scales radiated with the intensity of a floodlight and blinded the observer so it was impossible to identify her body. It was only known from history that it was a bipedal, upright walking being of approximately two meters with tender, fragile-looking limbs and dainty claws. And eyes cold like ice.

The light of her scales was mirrored in the glass walls, floors and ceilings of her palace and let the building shine like a star.

But the empress of the leviathans was anything but a gentle fairy. She demanded intransigent order from her subjects. A perfect, strict order without chaos was the necessary society status in her eyes. For this reason alone the mess on Mt. Ziz was a dishonor for all leviathans. A dishonor that had incited her to lie. Of course a behemoth had managed to cross the border river. Otherwise it would never have collected enough fuel in the form of magic and life force to unlock the wings of primal chaos. The lights had been visible within a radius of numerous kilometers after all and the appeared wings had been long enough to smother the whole Mt. Ziz. There was nothing else in the arsenal of the primal chaos which could have created such a phenomenon.

However the behemoths were primarily known for their ruthlessness. If the malefactor had managed to go upcountry, there would had been tracks definitely. Unmistakable tracks. But there was nothing like that. The river guardians could only confirm that one behemoth had reached the other side and that they had been thrown off their guard, seconds before sunrise. Hopefully this had obliterated the monster before it had time to take cover. But if not this would have enormous consequences on political level.

Therefore actions had to be taken without informing Canterlot´s royalty. As long as there was no evidence for an invader in Equestria there was no need for the leviathans to raise an alarm. Knowing all this Sekai established contact to the outside world once more, this time unofficially.

Meanwhile back in Equestria. A marsh in the middle of the country. Once a river had flooded many trees here and had formed a watery labyrinth. The roots were deep under water, became a habitat for many life forms and from the treetops you had a great view at Canterlot which was only a few kilometers away. Furthermore there was a unique life form roaming trough the waters. A scaly, ponylike creature which now went ashore at a dry location and shook to get the muddy water off.

The name of the creature was Charybdis and she was a leviathan, a single specimen among the countless mutations of her species. She had the size and the build of a pony, but instead of a coat her body was covered by blue, robust scales. She didn´t have a mane either, her head had only some small ornamental fins. Her ear conches had also the form of big fins for sound filtering. Her skeleton and her hooves as well were made of gristle. They were much lighter than bones and with the appropriate muscles they granted her agility and a stable body shape. In addition she had three gill slits on each site of her thorax front so she could breathe under water with them and with her lungs on land.

The teeth set apart Charybdis from a normal pony as well. They were thin and pointed like needles and ideally qualified to catch small fishes. Furthermore her long, thin, lizard-like tail made more than a half of her body-length. She was able to use it with amazing accuracy and it worked like a tentacle to help her getting along in the daily grind. In conclusion she had two wings on her sides. They were actually retractable fins with wafer-thin membranes. They worked primarily as a swimming help and they were qualified for gliding flight in the air at best with only a few flaps before exhaustion. Therefore these makeshift wings didn´t allow for a big maximum height, speed and range.

Charybdis had lived undercover in Equestria for quite some time. Usually she had kept track of the events and moods in the country and had changed her hideout from time to time, typically a marsh or a lake. It was pretty seldom for her to visit a town, even in disguise. A naked pony with blue scales would stand more out than a zebra. Altogether she lived a life in loneliness and spent most of the day under water.

But now this monotony of everyday life changed. She felt it in the water, a local drop of temperature. She went to her temporary established nest on land and spotted a small ice crystal in the stagnant water from there. In the heat of midday sun the crystal began already to melt, it wouldn´t last much longer.

“My empress?” asked Charybdis standing up straight.

The crystal oscillated and again delivered a message. Even when floating on the water surface Charybdis´s ears were able to recognize its sound waves.

“Charybdis, there is work for you,” declared Sekai. “By now the news should have reached the region of Canterlot.”

Charybdis knew what her empress was talking about. She regularly informed herself about the newest state of affairs by reading the newspapers and the chaotic lights at Mt. Ziz had been printed by every compilation at least one time.

“What has happened, my empress?” asked Charybdis.

“This is not important,” answered Sekai. “Essential for you is that there is possibly a ponytaur running around in Equestria. Capable of transforming into a behemoth and wily enough to cross the border river.”

Charybdis was surprised. A behemoth in Equestria and there hadn´t been any casualties so far? This was inconsistent.

“Your new task is to search for the ponytaur and handle it appropriately,” commanded Sekai. “You´re going to search the whole country for my sake, discretely, it goes without saying. And even if there is no hint that the target still exists, you will continue your search, except you receive new orders from me.”

“Understood, my empress,” answered Charybdis without hesitation.

Thereupon the rest of the ice crystal melted and the transmission was terminated. Afterwards without long hesitation the leviathan climbed jumping the highest tree around and reached the leafy canopy. Then she spread her short wings and pushed off a branch with her hind legs. Thereby she catapulted herself with all her energy into the air and faded to gliding flight.

She flew southeast toward Mt. Ziz. Her search would start there, a search which could be way more dangerous than a life as a spy in Equestria. Ponytaurs and behemoths, so the common leviathan conviction, were the worst enemies of the cosmic order, sort of the most dangerous creatures in the universe. There was no way these monsters could be allowed to get an opportunity to start gorging again and to gain new strength!

Most dangerous creatures in the universe, seriously. The first so called most dangerous creature in the universe stood in a dumpster right now, stretched butt in the air, went by the name Syronyx and chewed on the rind of a rotten orange. The other exemplar went by the name Gladiox and ate inside the next garbage can an entire full paper bag.

Prior to this both of the ponytaurs had managed to escape their chasers and had disappeared in the crowd of the town of Stutegart. The soldiers of the Royal Guard had been persistent but the ponytaurs had an anatomic advantage. The fact that they were in the world of order now where their bodies worked under different, ordered processes, didn´t have only handicaps. They had kept their natural strength. The flexible spines of the ponytaurs were of a very bendable material (even though it was originally foreign to order). In the sprint on a straight line without bends the spine moved like an elastic spring and allowed the ponytaur a maximum speed of almost 140 kilometers per hour. These creatures weren´t talented flyers at all but during such a sprint with all its jumps their body remained in the air most of the time.

After all Gladiox and Syronyx had disappeared in the crowd of ponies and had been forced to reduce their speed. In the full run they had been unable to corner sharply. When the soldiers had lost sight of them the ponytaurs found a shelter in a bunch of garbage cans standing at a train station. Or at least it should have become a train station sometime in the far future. Now it was just a gaping hole in the ground, raked up chaotically and even more chaotically organized. A building lot where nopony had an overview of anything. It was a place where shapes like some from Ödland didn´t attract attention at all. The only nice thing here was the great view on the huge forest in the north, outside the town. A forest nopony seemed to enter by choice.

But at this opportunity Syronyx and Gladiox had found something that was pure gold compared to everything that could be found in Ödland. Garbage. The dumpsters were full of junk which was like a feast without hunting to the ponytaurs. And it didn´t bother anypony when they took it.

Foul fruits and other rotten food were full of mold fungus, from bacteria to worms, louses and insect larvae – life forms Ödland didn´t have anymore, life forms full of life force. Syronyx hadn´t been able to hold himself back at the sight of such a buffet and shortly after that he drained the life force from the vermin like the juice from ripe grapes. Gladiox on the other hoof had inured to the benefit of being able to gorge bare matter. Busted cartons, empty bottles, dented cans, rusty metal and all sorts of other waste dumps had been dissolved and absorbed by his gorge field. Either way the hunger was satisfied.

Eventually a pony even came by and threw a newspaper into the garbage can in passing. It landed directly on Gladiox´s snout. Puzzled he already wanted to gorge it when Syronyx held him back. He was very interested in the paper stuff, so he took it and looked at the front page. It showed a picture of Mt. Ziz, the night sky was erratically filled with all colors of the rainbow and close to the peak of the mountain the enormous wings of primal chaos were visible. But since Syronyx had been there personally he didn´t pay special attention to the picture. He tried to read. Too bad his reading skills were so poor it was already difficult for him to decipher the first line.

“St-straa, stra-n, strange pheee, er, phenol-, phenipi-, phen-,” Syronyx stammered even the first two words so slowly, Gladiox interrupted him at last.

“I wanted to ask you before, Sy,” he began. “Where have you actually learnt to read?”

Thereupon Syronyx put the newspaper away and thought hard.

“It was... A book has once appeared in Ödland. You haven´t been there,” he told Gladiox. “It has been teleported there by magic. Oh, I remember now. The remaining magical radiation has been delicious. Anyway I have been able to read some. Haven´t understood too much, but it sounded tasty.”

Gladiox nodded, “Hm, like everything you look at.”

“Well I haven´t been able to gorge it,” Syronyx continued. “Do you honestly think I would give something like that to some Gyrazzan butt? I think its name was Cappa. No, Creepa. Ugh not again... er, Cupcubaba. Argh! I don´t know anymore!”

“Sweet mother of Tyranny, how can you forget something like that?” groaned Gladiox.